Welcome to March. And welcome, Orlando Magic fans, to a position this team hasn’t been in in over a decade.
Potential playoff matches! Winning records! “Can we beat this team and that team in the playoffs” conversations!
This is uncharted territory in Orlando.
Sitting at 34-26 entering Sunday’s game against the Detroit Pistons, the Orlando Magic haven’t had a winning record at this point in the season since the 2011 lockout season – where Orlando was 23-14 on March 1. The final full season? The year before, when the Dwight Howard era was coming down from its peak.
It wasn’t in 2019 that the Magic rallied to reach the playoffs and finish 42-40 — the only time they had a winning record since Dwight Howard’s final season in 2012.
In 2024, things are very different. This era is upon us — a 21-year-old All-Star leading the way, surrounded by a group of hungry twenty-somethings (and Joe Ingles).
There are six weeks left before the end of the regular season. The Orlando Magic have the easiest remaining schedule in the league – aside from the final trio of games, against the Milwaukee Bucks, against the Philadelphia 76ers and the finish at home against the Bucks, this will be the determining factor for a high playoff seeding.
The Magic are in the midst of a playoff race. And there will be games that give them an idea of what the playoffs might look like.
Before the team reaches the playoffs, here are three preliminary playoff games to put on the schedule at the end of the season.
